Tag Archives: Al Jazeera

In this photo provided by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Royal Saudi Land Forces and units of Special Forces of the Pakistani army take part in a joint military exercise.

The Saudi-led coalition has not started any major ground operation in the Yemeni port of Aden, coalition spokesman Ahmed al-Asiri said on Sunday, denying previous reports from Yemeni sources that ground troops had arrived and had began to fight.

“There are no foreign forces in Aden but coalition continues to help fight against the Houthi militia,” Asiri said in a statement.

It was earlier reported that a “limited coalition force entered Aden and another force is on its way” to the southern port city, a Yemeni official who requested anonymity, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Aden al-Ghad newspaper had reported that “the first push of the Arab ground force arrived on Sunday morning in Aden and began to take part in battle,” citing its reporters. The newspaper is linked to southern separatists demanding the restoration of the southern state that merged with North Yemen in 1990.

Aden has been the center of an offensive between forces loyal to the internationally-recognized government of Hadi battling the Houthis.

The Saudi-led coalition has been conducting an air war against the Houthi rebels and their allies since March 26 but the earlier reports were the first news of a ground deployment inside the country.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also slammed the network’s coverage of the latest round of fighting between Hamas and Israel during his recent appearance on the network.

“Every one of those rockets [fired by Hamas into Israeli cities] is a war crime, almost every one,” Sherman said, noting that Hamas seeks to hit civilian targets. “Of course it’s a war crime committed by Hamas. And of course the owners of this TV network help fund Hamas.”

Sherman further excoriated the station’s supposed objectivity: “… [Y]ou on this TV station say, ‘well maybe it’s not a war crime because it’s not successful, the rocket didn’t hit a kindergarten – it was aimed at a kindergarten but it didn’t hit a kindergarten – so then it’s not reprehensible.’”

The “owners” of Al Jazeera that Sherman referenced is the government of Qatar. A leaked confidential cable from America’s ambassador to Qatar called the station “an informal tool of [the Government of Qatar’s] foreign policy.”

The ties between Qatar and Al Jazeera have long been problematic. In 2009, then-Senator John Kerry said, “Qatar can’t continue to be an American ally on Monday that sends money to Hamas on Tuesday.” Last week, in fact, the United States blocked Qatari funds from being used to pay employees of Hamas.

Qatar’s role in supporting Hamas looms large as it is proffering a ceasefire agreement in competition with Egypt’s; Qatar’s terms address most of Hamas’ demands.

Judgment on journalists of Al Jazeera by a court and judges .. for publishing false and fabricated news in trying to demolish the Egyptian state is “chilling and draconian.”, but held a journalist from the same Al Jazeera for six years without charge or trial in Guantanamo with all kinds of torture, ..of course, is democratic, .. American democratic ..

According to British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith Stafford Smith, who visited him in 2005. Al Hajj had “endured horrendous abuse – he was repeatedly beaten and tortured in Guantánamo,He was attacked by dogs. He was hooded. He was hung from the ceiling. He was prevented from sleeping for days.

Interrogators questioned him more than a hundred times.

sexual abuse and religious persecution” and that he had been beaten, leaving a “huge scar” on his face.

Stafford Smith also said that Al Hajj had witnessed “the Quran being flushed down the toilet by US soldiers in Afghanistan” and “expletives being written on the Muslim holy book”.

Mr.Kerry..pleaseShut your mouth

Notice – Mr. Kerry .. kept aid for yourselves .. We know you are on close to bankruptcy

CAIRO – Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Tuesday he will not interfere in court rulings, rebuffing calls from the United States and other Western governments that he pardon or commute the sentences of three Al-Jazeera journalists handed heavy prison terms a day earlier.

The White House said the ruling “flouts the most basic standards of media freedom” and was a “blow to democratic progress.” It called on el-Sissi to intervene to bring about the immediate release of the three — Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed.

Australia and other governments have also urged el-Sissi to do so for the three journalists, whose families have said they will appeal. Appeals could take months, and the three are likely to remain in prison during the process.

In a televised address to graduating military cadets, el-Sissi said, “We will not interfere in court verdicts” — repeating the phrase twice in his speech to drive home the point.

He said he spoke to the justice minister Monday evening and “I told him one word: We will not interfere in judicial matters because the Egyptian judiciary is an independent and exalted judiciary.”

“If we desire (strong) state institutions, we must respect court rulings and not comment on them even if others don’t understand these rulings,” he said.

Under the constitution, the president has the power to issue a pardon or commute the sentences.

Prosecutors accused the three journalists of promoting or belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and of falsifying their coverage of protests to hurt Egypt’s security and make it appear the country is sliding into civil war. The government has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

The snub to the United States was sharper because only a day before the rulings, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with el-Sissi and said he had a shown a commitment to reviewing the judiciary and Egypt’s human rights laws. Kerry later denounced the verdict as “chilling and draconian.”

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement, rejecting foreign interference. Egyptian media Tuesday trumpeted the government’s defiance. A front-page headline on the daily El-Tahrir newspaper portrayed the court as standing up to what it called an attempt by Kerry to sway the verdict during his visit to Egypt.

CAIRO: Egyptian prosecutors on Thursday demanded the “maximum” penalty, ranging from 15 to 25 years in jail, for all 20 defendants in the trial of Al-Jazeera journalists accused of aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

Australian journalist Peter Greste and two other detained reporters with Qatar-based Al-Jazeera English are among the accused,

“We request that the court, without compassion or mercy, apply the maximum penalty for the abominable crimes they have committed … mercy for such (people) will bring the entire society close to darkness,” prosecutor Mohamed Barakat told the court.

The prosecution has charged the 16 Egyptian defendants with joining the Muslim Brotherhood, designated as a “terrorist group.”

The four foreign defendants in the case, including Greste, are charged with “spreading false news,” collaborating and assisting the Egyptian defendants in their crimes by providing media material, editing it and publishing it on the Internet and Al-Jazeera.

Nine of the 20 defendants are in detention, while others are being tried in absentia, including three foreign reporters who are abroad.

The 16 Egyptians could get prison terms of 25 years, while the four foreigners could be jailed for 15 years, according to defense lawyer Ibrahim Abdel Wahab.

Greste and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief of Al-Jazeera English, were arrested in a hotel room in the capital on December 29 after the channel’s office was raided by police.

The two men were in a caged dock on Thursday along with seven codefendants, including some students who have collaborated occasionally with the network.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s outgoing president has decreed sexual harassment a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

The minister told a news conference held at the Interior Ministry’s headquarters in central Cairo that investigations proved the involvement of an”Arab country,” in reference to Qatar. in the case in which deposed president Mohamed Morsi and others, including presidential secretary Amin el-Serafy, are accused.

The Minister told the news conference that the accused conspired to seize a large number of defense documents , reports and files connected with the Armed Forces armament and national security and agreed to assign leading MB member Serafy, who is held in connection with the case which used to be kept inside a safe in one of the presidential palaces and carry them to an office of the MB in preparation for sending them to an intelligence agency which had been in close contact with them at that time and which supports the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood with the aim of destabilizing Egypt and undermining it.

Investigations revealed that Serafy carried the top secret materials outside the presidential palace and kept them with his daughter Karima before going into hiding and later being arrested on December 17, the minister said. These documents were delivered to an MB member called Mohamed Adel Kelany, an air attendant who hid them in his home in Nasr City, he said.

According to the minister, Kelany was detected while meeting with MB members in charge of smuggling the information including Karima and Ahmed Ismail Thabet who were arrested at dawn today having in their possession classified reports of sovereign and supervisory institutions. He disclosed that those involved in the smuggling plot were MB member Alaa Sablan, a Palestinian who lives in Qatar, in addition to MB member Ahmed Abdu Afifi, MB member Asmaa al-Khatib, a worker at the Rasd network who fled to Malaysia and MB member Khaled Hamdy Radwan, the son of detained MB leading figure in Gharbia Hamdy Radwan.

The minister said that upon directives by Serafy to his daughter and the other members of the mentioned group, copies of the classified materials were made and kept on a flash memory and Sablan was ordered to travel to Qatar to arrange for air attendant Kelany to transfer the documents to the country. According to the revealed information Sablan traveled to Turkey on December 23 and from there to Qatar where he met with Ibrahim Helal from Al Jazeera news channel who arranged for a meeting between him and a senior Qatari official to agree on delivering the original copies of the classified documents after smuggling them to either Turkey, Lebanon or Qatar in return for getting a sum of 1.5 million dollars. The Qatari official gave the man a down payment of 50,000 dollars of which 10,000 were sent to Afify through Radwan.
The Minister said that the members of the group who are in Egypt were already arrested after arrest warrants were issued for them by the prosecution. He said that the classified documents that Kelany had in his house included information about the defense ministry, the national security authority, the administration supervisory authority, the justice ministry and the public security authority.

Afify and Radwan are now being interrogated by the state security prosecution, he said.

(Reuters) – Egypt put three Al Jazeera journalists on trial on Thursday on charges of aiding Egyptians belonging to a “terrorist organization”, in a case criticized by human rights groups who say the authorities are stamping out freedom of expression.

The journalists, wearing white prison outfits, appeared in metal cages, a Reuters witness said. Six others identified as Al Jazeera journalists are being tried in absentia.

Three of the Qatar-based television network’s journalists – Peter Greste, an Australian; Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian national; and Baher Mohamed – were detained in Cairo on December 29 and remain in custody, Al Jazeera said.

The court postponed the case until March 5.

In a statement last month, the prosecutor said Jazeera journalists had published lies that harmed the national interest and had supplied money, equipment and information to 16 Egyptians. The foreigners were also accused of using unlicensed broadcasting equipment.

The 16 Egyptians are to face trial for belonging to a “terrorist organization”, an apparent reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, The government has declared the Brotherhood a “terrorist group”.

Four journalists working for the Qatar based satellite station to be held 15 days pending investigation

False news

New accusations of terrorism have been levelled at three members of Al Jazeera’s Cairo news team, including false news and joining a terrorist organisation.

According to a Tuesday statement by spokesman for the prosecutor Ahmad El-Rakib, correspondent Peter Greste, bureau chief Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, producer Baher Mohamed are charged with “joining a terrorist organisation, publishing false news harming national security, terrorising people and harming the people’s general benefit, and possessing broadcast equipment without licence.”

The statement details the journalists’ arrest, Baher from his home in 6 October, and the rest of the team from the Marriott Hotel in Zamalek which they had used as a temporary base of operations.

“[The Al Jazeera team] rented two suites in a touristic hotel to use as a media centre to gather videos and edit them to show that Egypt is witnessing a civil war, harming Egypt’s political position and to serve the Brotherhood goals. The defendant[s] broadcast the edited material through Al-Jazeera and CNN,” read the statement.

Greste, an Australian, Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian and Egyptian national Baher have been ordered to be detained for 15 days pending investigation.

Cameraman Mohamed Fawzy was arrested with the other news team members but later released.

On 25 December, Egypt’s cabinet designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group following the bombing of a police station in Mansoura that left 16 dead and more than 130 people injured.

Under the new designation, people participating in Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations could face up to five years in prison, while those leading demonstrations could face the death penalty.

Egyptian authorities arrested a team of journalists from the news channel Al Jazeera English on Sunday, accusing them of broadcasting “false news” that damaged national security as well as possessing written materials that promoted “incitement,” including information about student protests in support of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Three of the four journalists were arrested at the Cairo Marriott hotel, where they were said to have turned a series of rooms into an improvised bureau. The journalists have been described in many Egyptian media reports as “a terrorist cell” working in support of the Brotherhood, which the government declared a terrorist organization last week. On Monday evening it was reported that their case had been referred to a special national security prosecutor.

Al Jazeera said that the four journalists detained were Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, a Canadian citizen and the channel’s Cairo bureau chief, who previously worked for CNN and contributed to The New York Times; Peter Greste, an Australian and two-decade veteran of Reuters, CNN and the BBC ; Baher Mohamed, a Cairo-based producer; and the cameraman Mohamed Fawzy.

In a statement, Al Jazeera English demanded the release of its employees and called their arrest part of a pattern of “harassment by Egyptian security forces which has arrested our colleagues, confiscated our equipment and raided our offices despite that we are not officially banned from working there.”

Remark :

August 20, 2013

On it’s first day of broadcasting in the United States, Al Jazeera aired a fake video of a man supposedly dying of a gun shot wound. The footage showed a man lying on his back, with his shirt covered with blood, as a woman kneeled over him screeching. Then a doctor lifted his shirt to inspect the wound, but there was none.

Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar, who also funded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Ironically, just before Al Jazeera aired the video, they had filed a lawsuit against AT&T. A spokesman said, “Al Jazeera America’s strong hope is to resolve this matter quickly so that AT&T’s customers will have access to our unbiased, fact-based and in-depth coverage of the news that is important to Americans.”

Once the doctor lifted the man’s shirt and exposed the lie, the man on the ground repositioned himself to block the camera. The camera was then turned away. The scam was exposed by FSA Crimes, a nonprofit organization that tracks war crimes.

This is not the first time that Al Jazeera was accused of doctoring a tape or perpetrating a fraud in order to show the Muslim Brotherhood in a favorable light.

The following is a statement by FSA Crimes:

“The strong bias of Al Jazeera in Egypt was always to be expected. Their support for the Muslim Brotherhood was a given and there was never any doubt that the new interim government had their suspicions about the news agency.”